


An Undiscovered Country

by Luzula



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 05:16:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12976800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: After the victory of the Light, Will returned home.He was still a boy, and like a boy he went to school, was scolded by Barbara, fed the rabbits, quarrelled with James, teased Mary. With the part of his mind that was not a boy, he began to understand why he was the one who went alone: because he was not yet truly alone in the world, in the way that Merriman was.





	An Undiscovered Country

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lleu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleu/gifts).



> Thanks to Aria for canon beta reading, and to Feroxargentea for Britpicking! Lleu, I hope you enjoy this despite the lack of Welsh.

After the victory of the Light, Will returned home. 

He was still a boy, and like a boy he went to school, was scolded by Barbara, fed the rabbits, quarrelled with James, teased Mary. With the part of his mind that was not a boy, he began to understand why he was the one who went alone: because he was not yet truly alone in the world, in the way that Merriman was. 

But he let that part of himself go. If an Old One was needed, he would know. And so he went through summer and autumn, the apples growing ripe and the rowan berries in red clusters on the branches, without thinking of that great tree and what the Light had accomplished there. 

On his way home from school one day in early November, he got off the bus alone. James was laid up with a cold (which Will was resigned to catching any day now) and Mary had stayed behind to visit a friend, so Will was on his own. It was already dark and cold, and the leaves lay soggy on the ground in the windless damp evening. Alone by the road, he hesitated. He was not taking the shortest way, and left to his own he hadn't done so for quite some time. Looking around, on an impulse he crossed over to Tramp's Alley instead, the Stanton children's old shortcut. Oldway Lane. 

With the smallest tendril of his awareness, he reached out. Drops of water fell from the branches of the elms lining the alley, and a car passed on the main road. Nothing. He could not wake the old road to its power, nor see it lined with blazing light, because it was not there anymore. It had been part of the Light, but the Light had left this land. It might as well be called Tramp's Alley now. He could call light himself, if he wanted to, but what would be the use? 

Will felt tears welling up, and screwed his eyes shut. He should not regret this loss. The Light had existed only to defeat the Dark, and to release the world and the people who lived there to go their own way. And still he did regret it. He cried for the world he had lost, a boy walking along the lane with his hands stuffed into his pockets and his head bent down to avoid the eyes of any passers-by. 

He stopped before he got home. His mum would be worried if he came in like this--probably she'd think he was bullied at school. So he leaned against a tree, closed his eyes, thought about the homework he'd been putting off, the cinnamon buns his mum had promised to bake tonight, and James' annoying tendency to consider himself a martyr whenever he had the slightest bit of sniffle or sore throat. 

Will fed the rabbits first, and then, having mastered himself opened the door of the house to the warm smell of the promised cinnamon buns. 

***

So went the winter, Will carefully looking past the things it was no use to think about. It was a winter rich in snow by any measure except the anomaly of the year before. The river did not freeze over, but the pond on the neighbouring farm did, and Will collected a number of bruises in his attempts to ice-skate. He got in one last glorious season of carol-singing before his voice broke, which it did in January with a vengeance, such that he could hardly open his mouth without Mary sniggering at him. Paul, mock serious, said that Will's last season as a soprano had been his Christmas gift from the universe. 

They did not sing at the manor. Miss Greythorne had passed away during the year, or at least that was the memory she had left the community with, and the manor was boarded up. Rumour said that she had left it to a trust, but no one knew yet what would be done with it. Will went there alone one evening before Christmas, standing before the great doors with the stars overhead and his breath frosting in the air. With a whisper of his mind, he could have opened the lock and gone in. But his powers weren't for his own satisfaction. Instead, he stood before the closed doors and sang _God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen_ , taking both parts and hearing in his mind Merriman's deep voice instead of his own. 

***

"I'm a little worried about Will," his mother's voice said through the almost-closed door to the kitchen. Will froze. It was late in the evening and he'd been on his way to get a sandwich--he always seemed to be hungry these days. 

"Oh?" said his father's voice. "He's a little moody, maybe. But he's almost a teenager now." 

"Probably that's all it is," his mother said. "It takes them all so differently--you'd think having experience with one teenager prepares you for the next. But he seems so--distant sometimes." 

Silence. Will imagined them sipping their cups of tea. Was he distant? He shifted, leaning against the wall of the dark hallway. 

"Does he have plans for the summer?" his father asked. 

"Well, that's part of it--I haven't heard him talking about friends the way Mary or James does." 

Will imagined trying to tell them. But he'd tried that once, with Stephen. 

"Maybe he needs a change of scenery? Why not ask Jen and David if they want to take him in for a week or two? He seemed to like Wales."

"My thoughts exactly. If he wants to, of course. But I think it'd do him good." 

Will blinked. He thought about it: going back to Clwyd farm. To where he won the harp and woke the Sleepers. To Bran. Somehow it seemed part of his old life, and he had shut it away along with the rest, but it was a real place and it was still there. And so was Bran. 

"Yes," he whispered under his breath, "I want to go." 

***

And so he got off the train at Tywyn station on a June evening, with a brisk wind coming in off the coast and clouds scudding overhead. He took a few deep breaths, waking himself up after the stuffy train trip. 

It was Aunt Jen who had come to get him, waving cheerfully at him from the Land Rover. 

"My, you've grown!" she said, looking him up and down. "You're taller than me already." Which was not saying much, but Will supposed it was true. 

"You're visiting at a good time," she said, driving between the hedges up towards the mountains. "We've got the lambing and the shearing over with. If you'd come in April, we would've been up at all hours. The ewes don't stop lambing when the sun goes down." 

She asked Will about all his siblings, showing an impressive knowledge of them all which Will supposed came of her closeness with his mother, even after all these years. Then they were at the farm, and Will got out to open the gate while she drove through, closing it again carefully. 

"I've got supper ready, and Rhys will have set the table if he's in yet," Aunt Jen said. Rhys was not, and Will set the table instead. 

But David Evans came in soon after, and Rhys and John Rowlands. Will sat in a corner of the room, and before they saw him, he glanced quickly at John Rowlands and then away. He wouldn't remember, Will knew he wouldn't, and yet--this was still a man who had suffered much. Will wondered what the Lady had left him with. Had his wife died, in his mind and in the eyes of the world? Perhaps in an accident? Rowlands' face was seamed from squinting at the sun, and in the quick glint of his eyes Will could read nothing. But then, he was not entitled to know Rowlands' mind. 

"Welcome back, Will," Uncle David said. Rowlands smiled at Will, with no awareness that Will was anything other than an ordinary twelve-year-old boy. Will felt obscurely sad. 

"Will you be meeting up with Bran, then?" Rhys said. "I remember you two were running all over the hills together last year." 

Will said something noncommittal, and then Aunt Jen was chivvying them all to sit down to the meal. It was delicious, and Will piled his plate high, but--he worried about how it would feel to meet Bran. He'd wanted to meet him, it was true, but the unease he'd felt with Rowlands would be so much worse with Bran. They'd shared so much, and to see him oblivious to it all...

He stayed in his corner of the table while the others talked of farm matters and night fell outside the windows. 

***

As it happened, he didn't have to seek out Bran, because Bran found him. Will was eating breakfast alone, since he didn't keep farm hours (well, alone except for Aunt Jen bustling about the house), when Bran came in the door. 

Will was instantly aware of him. He drew the eye, as if he were larger than life, with his pale colouring somehow not appearing washed out, but crisper, more _there_. And the flash of his eyes...was it only that Will knew who he truly was? Or did others perceive him the same way? 

"So there you are. Do I have to hear from John Rowlands that you're here?" Bran said. Will remembered his first reaction to Bran--he'd found his manner a little bit haughty and mocking. But now hearing his voice only released a flood of memories. 

"I...sorry," Will said awkwardly, standing up and taking his plate to the sink. "I should've written to you." 

"You should have," Bran said. But then he laughed a little. "And I should have written to you, I suppose." 

Will smiled at him. "Not faultless either, are you?" 

And then a dog--no, an almost-grown puppy--came in through the door and made straight for Bran. Bran knelt down to greet her. 

"Did you get a new dog?" Will said, and instantly regretted it. 

Bran's mouth tightened. "No," he said shortly, even while his hands continued to fondle the puppy's ears, gentle and kind. It was clearly a young sheepdog, black-and-white with tan markings, where Cafall had been mostly white. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way," Will said quietly. 

Bran sighed. "It wasn't my idea. You know Caradog Pritchard went mad last year, and he had a bitch with a litter, and they had to go somewhere. John Rowlands came home with one of them and gave to me."

Easier to come from him, perhaps, than from Owen Davies. 

"Do you have to work today?" Will asked. "Or can we go out? Aunt Jen said there wasn't much work this time of year, but everyone ate breakfast and left hours ago." 

"While you slept in," Bran said and grinned. "You know that only means work all day, not all hours of the clock." 

"I'm a lazy English boy who doesn't know what life on a sheep farm means, I know," Will agreed amiably. 

"You said it, not me," Bran said, pointing a finger at Will. "No, but I'm free today, if you want to go for a hike."

"I do," Will said. The puppy approached him, wagging its tail in boundless good humour. Will slid down to the floor to greet it, letting it lick his fingers. "What's her name?"

"Rhian," Bran said. 

"She's lovely." 

"Mmm," Bran said. "Are we going out?" 

Aunt Jen came into the sunlit kitchen then, smiling as she saw them together. "Oh good, you found each other. Want some sandwiches for lunch, then, if you're going out?"

They did. Soon they were walking along the road up the valley, with Rhian bounding beside them. The whole aspect of the valley was different seen in early summer. No more the brooding mountains cloaked in dark heather and brown bracken. The sky was studded with small white cumulus clouds, promising fine weather. And the bracken on the hillside was fresh green, as was the grass where the sheep were dotted like the clouds in the sky, only much smaller. They had lambs with them. 

And then it struck Will that it wasn't just the contrast between late autumn and early summer. That brooding weight had come from the Grey King, who was now gone from this land, leaving it with a lighter heart. 

"It's--so much lighter," Will said inarticulately. He wanted the old Bran, the one who had faced the Grey King with him, who would understand. 

But Bran surprised him. "You feel it, do you," he said with a sidelong glance at Will. "I don't know what has changed, but something has." 

Will looked at him, startled. "In what way?"

"You remember the troubles we had last year, with Caradog Pritchard," Bran said. They turned aside from the road, beginning to climb a narrow track up the hillside. "There was more. Sheep that were found dead. But more than that even, some mood in the land that I can't put my finger on. And now it's gone." Bran was silent, looked at Rhian trotting along beside them. "As you say, it's so much lighter." 

Of course. Bran had forgotten, but he was still who he was. He was no ordinary boy. "What happened to him?" Will said. "Caradog Pritchard?"

"He's in an asylum over Dolgellau way. His wife couldn't keep him at home, though she tried at first." 

Bran whistled suddenly, as Rhian took an interest in a bird flying up. Rhian stopped in her tracks and looked back uncertainly. She came back at Bran's command, and Bran knelt down and praised her, stroking her head and ears. 

"She's a sheepdog," Bran explained. "Won't do for her to go after anything else." 

"Never seen a puppy obey like that," Will said. "They're usually all over the place." 

Bran grinned. "It's my natural authority." 

Will could not very well agree. "I suppose you've grown up with sheepdogs from the cradle." 

"Pretty much, actually." 

They were climbing steadily now, and Will breathed deeply, feeling the wind cool his sweaty face. Abruptly he recognised where they were headed, looked up at the looming bulk of the Craig yr Aderyn. His heart pounded from exertion and from remembrance of what had happened there. 

"Hard to get up to the top, from here," Bran said, breathing quickly as well. "And I don't want to risk Rhian on the steepest parts; she's still a puppy. But there's a place...over there." He pointed. 

Will had been afraid it would be the cleft through which they had entered. The Door of the Birds. But it wasn't; rather, it was a ledge below the bulk of the rock, and seemed accessible enough. 

"I was here last time," he said. It seemed he couldn't help poking at Bran's memories. 

"I know," Bran said. "Bit of a different situation, though, wasn't it? I thought you should see it without a fire on your heels." 

Of course he remembered that, there was nothing supernatural about it. Or not obviously so, at least. 

As they neared the rock, dark flocks of birds rose, circling and screeching. Will tilted his head back and could not see the nests, but he could tell by the white streaks of bird droppings where they must be. 

"Think we're coming to rob them of their chicks, do they?" he said. 

"Probably," Bran agreed. "Maybe people took the eggs, in older days." 

They clambered over the rocks that led up to the ledge. The slabs of rock were warm from the sun, and they settled down to eat their sandwiches. Rhian begged as if she hadn't been fed for days. 

"He starves you, doesn't he?" Will teased, stroking her silky ears. 

"Don't be fooled." But Bran pulled a bag of dog treats from his pocket and fed her. 

They could see the whole valley spread out below them like a quilt, with roads and dry stone walls like tiny seams between the patches of pasture and bracken. In the hazy distance lay the sea. Bran pointed out houses and the invisible borders between farms. 

They settled into a comfortable silence, lulled by the warmth of the sun. Will leaned back against the rock behind him and closed his eyes. Curious, he let his awareness sink into the rock, felt the contours of the valley with his mind. With a shock, he drew back. It was not empty, like Oldway Road had been. 

How stupid of him. He had been thinking of the Light and the Dark as the only forces of the world, leaving it empty when they departed, but that was not so. The Wild Magic and the High Magic were far older. And while the High Magic was distant, a thing of the stars and of impartial justice, the Wild Magic deeply belonged to the land. It must have claimed the peaks occupied by the Grey King when he left, claimed them as its natural home. 

Will shivered, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling despite the warmth of the sun. There was nothing hostile in the Wild Magic that he sensed, but neither was it necessarily safe. 

He opened his eyes. Bran was watching him with a steady gaze. Will met his eyes. He wondered if Bran could feel it, too. 

"Thanks for bringing me up here," he said. "It's...beautiful." He made a gesture as though to imply what he could not say. 

"Mmm," Bran said, still watching him. Will was aware suddenly of Bran as an undiscovered country, as unknown and numinous in his way as the Wild Magic of the valley. He lowered his eyes, unable suddenly to bear the intensity. 

They were silent for a space. A kestrel soared high in the sky, riding the rising air of noon. 

"I often come up here," Bran said. "Since the land changed--you can feel it best from up here." Bran's voice was low, but Will could feel it in his own body. 

Rhian got up to lick Bran's hand, breaking the moment. She whined a little, wagging her tail. 

Will laughed and ruffled her fur, feeling curiously lighthearted. "I suppose she's getting bored with us." Then he looked up at Bran. "And yes, I feel it too."

Bran grinned, and reached over to clasp Will's shoulder. "Let's go, then."

At Bran's touch Will felt himself tolling like a great bell, as if the bells of the Lost Land were sounding sweetly through his whole body. And yet it had nothing to do with magic. Will knew then the first taste of what it could be to grow into a man. He had been a child with an Old One's knowledge, but he would grow into adulthood as a human as well. 

He would be the one who went alone, but perhaps he would not be lonely.


End file.
